Sacré Bleu

“I could feel you out there,” she said, reaching into the box. “I wasn’t really dusting. I lied.”

She pirouetted, snapping to his eyes as her spot, her arms out to her sides. In her right hand she held a black glass blade shaped like a long, razor-sharp fang. She smiled and approached him, never letting her eyes leave his.

Lucien felt his pulse quicken, leap really, in his neck, but he smiled back. So this is how it ends.

“I really thought you’d use syphilis on me,” he said.

She stepped around the coffee table, knelt, and presented the knife to him on the flat of her palms. “This is yours,” she said. “You use it to make the Sacré Bleu.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Take it!”

He took the knife.

She cradled his cheek. “Those times, before, when I tried to rid myself of the Colorman, I had never thought it through, planned for someone to take his place. You have to make the Sacré Bleu or I will be no more.”

“I don’t know how.”

“I’ll teach you.”

“You said we have to have a painting.”

She held her finger to her lips, then went to the bedroom and returned carrying a small canvas, Henri’s oil of Carmen in the Japanese kimono.

“But we burned all of the—” He leaned forward, set the black knife on the coffee table, and touched the surface of the painting lightly near the edge. “This is still wet. It’s just been painted.”

“Yes.”

“But that means Carmen—you, were with Henri. That’s where you were when I couldn’t find you.”

“He saved me. Well, I thought he saved me. Carmen was something I could give him as a reward. I love him.”

“I thought you loved me.”

“You are my only and my ever, but I love him, too. I am your Juliette. No one but you shall ever touch, ever be loved, by Juliette.”

“Ever?” he asked.

“Ever and ever,” she said.

“If I make the Sacré Bleu, you will have to inspire other painters, to make more paintings. The price always has to be paid; you said that. You’ll be with them, in whatever form. And I’ll be what—alone?”

“Juliette will be with you, even when I am not, Lucien. You can paint her, watch her dust, whatever you want, and I will return to you. You are unique, Lucien, among all the painters I have known, over thousands of years. I chose you, shaped you to grow into the man who would be my ever when I saw how you loved painting when you were still a little boy.”

“Then I knew you, as my—? When you were—?”

“Do you remember when your mother told you that women were wondrous, mysterious, and magical creatures who should be treated not only with respect but with reverence and even awe?”

“That was you?”

Juliette grinned. “Did I lie?”

“You weren’t always my mother?”

“To you? Just a few times.”

“God, that’s a disturbing thought.”